Carey, Jacqueline - Kushiel's Justice

[oyceter]

I had thought previously that my remembered fondness for Carey's first three Kushiel books were because I didn't have as much taste when I read them, or other such insulting thoughts, partially based on how meh Kushiel's Scion left me.

Nope, not true. Still love the world, still love the over-the-top epicness of it, still love the strange kindness Carey has for her characters. This book thankfully hits those points, which I feel the first book missed -- there is lots of sex and sexuality and romance, there are larger-than-life conflicts and heroism, and there are lots of moments of grace. Also, amazingly, Carey makes the love triangle central to this book work for me. I suspect it's because all the parties are aware of the love triangle, and while there are some secrets being kept, they're really not very secretive.

Imriel continues to be emo in this book, but it worked better for me because people knew he was emo and called him out on being emo. I also like Dorelei and Sidonie very much (particularly Sidonie), so that made me happy. Also, I find I have a higher tolerance for people going off and deciding that they are In Love and it cannot be stopped when a) the people actually try to stop and b) their religion is based on the tenet that people should love as they will.

The thing that really twinged me about the book was the Yeshuites. In the prior trilogy, the Yeshuites follow Yeshua bin Yosef (aka, Christ), but are very clearly modeled after Jews. It bugged me a little when I read it back then, but probably not as much as it would bug me now. In this trilogy, we find the Yeshuites have adopted the cross as their symbol and are starting to take over things with armies, and wow, it really bugged me that they were modeled on Jews (Name ben Father's Name, speaking Habiru aka Hebrew, religious leaders being called "Rebbe" and etc.).

Anyway, will continue reading because of the brain candy and Sidonie and the acceptance of different kinds of sexuality and open relationships, but yeah. It bugs me.

Comments

[snarp]

I was concerned by the fact that Phedre apparently converted a whole country full of African Jews in the-book-before-the-book-before-this-one. It seemed just slightly inappropriate, particularly given that she's too special to practice her own religion in the orthodox manner. Accidental-missionary stories give me stomach problems, and I don't think that a semi-practicing pseudo-Christian ought to be the ultimate special vessel of Jewish lore.

(Though acccctually, it's a fairly period-and-setting-appropriate mindset, since in late medieval and early Renaissance Western Europe, the Catholic clergy believed that they understood the Jewish faith better than the Jews did. (To a degree greater than certain Christian denominations do today, I mean - it wasn't just the Tanakh that the Jews were Doing Wrong, but also the Talmud, which post-dated Christianity.) In some places they forced rabbis to participate in debates and declared themselves the winners.

So if we assume that Phedre and Imriel are unreliable narrators who are unconsciously retelling, in their narratives of themselves, their culture's narrative of religious identity, the books are actually a cutting commentary on a Christian identity formulated upon superiority over Judaism! Jacqueline Carey is subversive!

...I swear to god that I laughed at that when I first thought of it, but now that I've written it out, it's actually pretty grim...)

[sajia.livejournal.com]

One of my livejournal friends once asked me which fictional universe I'd like to live in, as part of a meme. I almost answered "the Kushiel books", but couldn't say it, because face it, I am very troubled by the "we are special because we are descended from angels" notion. In all fairness, at least Terre d'Ange is not an imperialist nation. Am also bothered by the training of children as prostitutes, even well-treated prostitutes, as in Phedre in Dart.
What also bothers me is that some people actually praise Kushiel for historical accuracy, which is problematic when dealing with Eastern cultures as Avatar attempts to. Is the monstrous cult that kidnaps and tortures Imriel and a whole bunch of women meant to represent Islam or Zoroastraniasm?
So Imriel is actually going ahead and pursuing both sisters, heh? Don't tell me, I have to wait until the holidays before I can read any books of a non-educational nature.

[oyceter]

I totally don't remember the stuff with the book-before-the-book-before! Ugh, that sounds incredibly bad.

Though I like your theory about Carey being cutting commentary, hee. I wish.

[oyceter]

What also bothers me is that some people actually praise Kushiel for historical accuracy

*falls over laughing*

I like some of the things about Carey's worldbuilding, especially the non-demonization of sex and sexuality and the openness toward same-sex sex (though I would love to see more actual same-sex romances). But yeah, the whole
"Terre d'Ange is super special" thing bugs me. Not to mention the harems as a representation of the Middle East!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

These are presumably the same people who think that The Mists of Avalon is an authentic depiction of Dark Ages Britain?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I didn't find the Yeshuites offensive, but rather an interesting alternate-historical extrapolation of what might have developed had early Christianity stayed a (heretical) offshoot of Judaism rather than gone its own cultural way. I haven't read the second book yet, though.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I thought the monstrous cult was a sort of evil parody of the Zoroastrian-inspired religion it temporarily supplanted, like Satanism is a parody of Christianity. When it's defeated, the sacred fires miraculously re-light across the country, and the old (Zoroastrian, non-evil) order is restored.

No argument on the lack of historical accuracy, though!

[oyceter]

I'll be interested to see what you think of this book! I mean, clearly my reading is influenced by this week's anti-Semitism debates, but right now it does still sort of bug me that we see the Yeshuites turning into our Christian analogue and we don't get to see much of the non-Yeshuite Jews (I can't remember Carey's name for them).

Other than that, which may or may not bug you, I think you'll like this one better --- it's much more interesting! Also, more sex ;).

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yes -- I enjoyed the first Kushiel trilogy quite a bit, but that was despite the Ever So Special And Beautiful D'Angeline, and every time their awesome was trumpeted my eyes nearabout rolled out of my head.

Jewish-feeling Yeshuites

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Not such an oddball alternate-world choice, really; all it means is that Mark won, and Paul never happened in any serious way (in terms of early-Christian backbiting, in the pre-AD-100 timeframe).

There are currently practicing Jews who identify as Jewish and follow kosher laws and cover their women's hair, etc, who also believe Jesus was the manifest son of God. They're called Messianics, and admittedly, a lot of mainstream Jews think they're weirdos, but they're not a new phenomenon.

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

Hm. Well, they didn't HAVE to be prostitutes, necessarily, I don't think? I remember other options for work being offered in the houses...

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

I've decided that Justice is one of my top three favorite books, EVER. And I wasn't that into Scion myself. It is more epic. I love the love triangle and how everyone tries their damndest to make the situation work, and how the consequences work. I love how the moral of the story really is, "Love as thou wilt," which I never really thought of in that serious a manner in the other books. Here it's deadly serious when they do and when they don't. Wow. Really impressive.

I loved Sidonie and Dorelei as well, and Imriel's being called on his emo-ness. (Also the bit where S is all, "You do know that all the girls at court are lusting after your emoness, right?" and he's all, "Um...no, no idea," and she's all, "I never got the appeal myself, and now look at me..." Okay, major paraphrase there.)

My one quibble, which would be the same as Avatar, really, is that it takes way too goddamned long for Imriel to get the hell home. But I can see her not wanting to suddenly brush over the toll a long journey would take on you, and being all, "one two skip a few, now we're back home" would do that.

Re: Jewish-feeling Yeshuites

[oyceter]

Yeah, I don't think it's an oddball choice, but it does really bug me that the only Jews we really get to see in the world are.. Christian. Particularly given the debates on anti-Semitism going around right now and the history of forced conversion of Jewish people.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I was very glad that Carey managed to balance both Sidonie and Dorelei and make them both very different without making either of them better. One of my pet peeves is women fighting each other over a man, so that was nice! And I liked Sidonie standing up to people and just in general how she has power and knows she has it.